


A Killer Team

by idrewacircle



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Mantis AU, trans girl hungary, yeah this is kinda silly but i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 14:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18719170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrewacircle/pseuds/idrewacircle
Summary: "Hm.... consider...... belaliet...... but mantises......."Considered and written! Featuring Belarus the orchid mantis, Lithuania the moss mimic, and trans girl Hungary the Hercules beetle.





	A Killer Team

“Hey you!” someone calls. Erzsebet swivels her head around, scanning from left to right, though her thick, heavy neck has always made it hard for her to see beyond a certain angle. Nope, she can’t see anyone else on the log; just a few flowers, a couple fallen leaves, and some dew from the rain. Maybe it was her imagination?

“Over here,” purrs the voice, and it’s there, to her left, that Erzsebet spots it. An orchid of some kind, statuesque, a vibrant, dazzling white with pink-tinted petals, on a dull, mottled brown, slightly mossy stem. Weird. She’s never seen a flower like that before in her life, especially not one that spoke.

“Come a bit closer,” the orchid lilts, twirling slightly in the wind, its magenta petals glistening with dew. It waves to Erzsebet, a “come hither” motion if she’d ever seen one. “Just a bit more.” Erzsebet can’t help it; her legs move of their own accord, closer and closer, drawn in like fish in a net. The flower looks irresistible, swaying this way and that; smooth, pale petals shining in the midday sun, lithe body practically dancing in the breeze, ivory white eyes glimmering, antennae twitching, mandibles salivating. Wait, mandibles?

“Stop! Stop! I know her!”

The flower rolls her eyes, and releases Erzsebet’s head from her jaw’s vice grip.

“Seriously?” She flounces off of her stem.

“I know, love, I’m sorry.” The stem crawls farther out on the log, ebony eyes flicking around anxiously as he watches for other predators. Erzsebet squints hard. He’s vaguely familiar, with chestnut hair down to his chin, high cheekbones, a mossy body that almost blends into the log.

“Wait, don’t tell me.” She rubs her lengthy horn with one of her pincers. “Is that— are you Tolys?”

“Hi Erzsebet,” he smiles, extending a twig-like hand, “I’m surprised you remembered me.”

“Come on,” she grins back, taking his hand in both her pinches, and shaking it vigorously. Tolys shakes with it, though that’s to be expected; he’d always been on the thinner, smaller side, even for a male. “I’d recognize a hatchling buddy anywhere. How’ve you been?”

“I’m doing well, you?”

“Pretty good myself, though I have to say,” she tilts her massive horn towards the orchid, who sits on the edge of the log, playing with the ends of her platinum blonde hair and looking rather bored, “I was  _not_ expecting a cannibal flower on my way home.”

“Oh, yes, sorry!” Tolys laughs, gesturing at the other mantis. “My wife is an expert at camouflage. Come, come! Natasha, this is Erzsebet.”

Natasha’s piercing eyes lift from the ends of her hair to scan Erzsebet’s face, and for a moment, Erzsebet is worried Natasha changed her mind about eating her after all.

“Nice to meet you.” Erzsebet extends her pincher again. Natasha doesn’t move.

“Charmed.” A tight smile, the kind you give someone you know tangentially but don’t particularly care for. “Tolya, if we can’t eat her—”

Tolys’s eyes go wide, twin black holes. “We can’t! She’s a good friend from—”

 _“Fine,”_  Natasha sighs. “Since we  _can’t,_  I’m gonna finish the last of the bee from this morning.”

“Go ahead, I’ll just catch up with Erzsebet.” He waves at her, then turns to Erzsebet. Natasha squints at his back, and Erzsebet can’t help feeling like she’s intruding on something.

“You don’t want any?” Her plucked eyebrows arch as her eyes somehow narrow even further.

“No, really, I’m fine.”

Natasha frowns. “I’ll get you a leg and a thigh.”

“Really, I—”

“You’re supposed to be a stem, not a twig, Tolvydas,” Natasha snaps, rolling her eyes again.

Tolys flushes. “Okay, okay.”

Natasha crawls into the log’s gaping hole, letting herself drop down with a thump, though Erzsebet can’t see her through the darkness within. Honestly, Erzsebet is a bit glad she’s finally gone; something about her puts Erzsebet on edge. Maybe it’s the giant mandibles? She can hear Natasha shuffling around down there, presumably finding some lunch, and tries not to think about what, or rather,  _who_ that lunch once was.

“Natasha always worries that I’d starve without her,” Tolys laughs wrly. “Well, I probably would. She does most of the work for me.”

“Don’t say that!” Erzsebet scolds, though secretly, she kinda has to agree. She puts one of her her heavy pinchers on his shoulder. “You two make a great team, together.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely! I never would have guessed that you two weren’t a real flower!”

“Thank you.” He places his hand over hers, and his cheeks flush again. Yup, this was definitely Tolys, no doubt about it. “Honestly, you don’t know how close you were to— well, let’s not talk about it.”

“Come on,” she winks, and shoves him a little, though even that small push is enough to knock him off his balance. Jesus, he  _is_ thin. “I could probably take her.”

Tolys laughs again. “Look, I know you’re strong—”

“They don’t call us Hercules beetles for nothing!” Erzsebet flexes, then tilts back a bit to better let the sun shine on her muscles. Oh yeah, she’d been working out, could you tell?

“You head would be gone in a second.”

Erzsebet shakes her head. “So I know she’s your wife and everything—”

“That she is, and I love her.”

“She would  _not_ have been able to kill me.”

“Yes I would’ve.” Natasha crawls back out of the hole, half a bee carcass in her middle left hand, two meaty legs in another. “Here.” She tosses the legs at Tolys, who scrambles to catch them, nearly fumbling them both.

“Thank you,” Tolys nods at Natasha, and she rolls her eyes, though a smile plays at the edges of her lips. They both raise their respective pieces to their lipless mouths, and begin to eat. The sound of crunching is almost too much, and Erzsebet doesn’t think she’s ever cringed harder in her life, shivers crawling down her exoskeleton. It’s like listening to dozens of twigs snap, but darker somehow, wetter, a sickening cracking and snapping as the two mantises eat their meal. She nearly has to turn away, before she notices—

“Wait,” Erzsebet gulps. “Isn’t that Evan?” She points to a geometric tattoo that snakes down the bee’s left side, before disappearing at the edge of his severed torso.

“You knew him?” Tolys takes the leg out of his mouth, then stares at it sheepishly.

Erzsebet nods. Her stomach turns.

“Tragic,” Natasha flips her hair over her shoulder, then grins halfway between a smile and a sneer. She takes another juicy bite.


End file.
